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Country Travel DISCOVERIES’ tour co-ordinators have announced the first handful of new and returning tour destinations in the works for 2016!

While dates and other details remain to be finalized, three popular discovery tours that have been on hiatus are slated to come back in 2016. The comprehensive, 11-day, 10-night Ireland: A Celtic Jaunt completely encircles the Emerald Isle to experience highlights north and south, urban and pastoral, ancient and modern.

Also coming back early next year, Panama and the Panama Canal – featuring an exciting cruise through a “Wonder of the Modern World,” punctuated by off-the-beaten-path stops with warm local hosts, from sugar cane and pineapple farmers to an Embera Indian tribe.

Featuring two Broadway shows, New York, New York! returns with a thrilling departure that will have you humming “Danke Schoen” while enjoying the autumnal beauty of the Big Apple and Central Park in fall.

In an exciting new Florida discovery, we’ll escape winter to explore the sunshine state from the Atlantic coast to the Gulf, en route experiencing orange groves and sugarcane fields, having lunch with a NASA astronaut, and meeting one of the world’s four master cigar makers.

With the popularity of 2015’s one-time-only Magical Danube & Prague exclusive charter cruise, CTD has determined to again charter a cruise ship (brand-new, now under construction) for a completely different itinerary in 2016, this time navigating the Rhine River.

Travelers on the inaugural departure of Country Travel DISCOVERIES' all-new Blue Ridge Country & Biltmore Estate tour enjoyed a fun and educational opportunity to help combat hunger, working with skilled potters to decorate bowls to benefit Asheville, NC's MANNA FoodBank.

At a tour stop in the River Arts District of Asheville, travelers had a chance to visit the Village Potters, where they learned the art of "throwing" and glazing bowls for the Empty Bowls Benefit Event—a widely respected, internationally emulated program to combat hunger by raising awareness and funds.

We were very excited to meet Dave and Kathy Mowrer, who celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary by taking Country Travel DISCOVERIES' Grand Canyon and Red Rocks tour this spring.

Kathy told us that her two adult children gave her and Dave money along with a Country Travel DISCOVERIES catalog. They were told by their children, "You cannot spend the money on the house or on bills. You have to use the money to travel somewhere."

This is the first time Dave and Kathy have ever taken a guided group tour. Kathy said she really enjoyed it and hopes to take more in the future. We hope so, too! We're honored that they chose to celebrate their anniversary with us -- and would love to travel with them again soon!

For the third year, Country Travel DISCOVERIES has again been named among the Milwaukee-area Leisure Travel Agencies that top the list annually compiled by the Milwaukee Business Journal.

As in the past two years, CTD stands out in a field of larger, established and corporate-focused agencies by our unique leisure travel group tours in unusual destinations. A sidebar by research editor Barb Zaferos notes that of 18 businesses listed, only four companies actually have leisure travel as 100% of their business, led by Country Travel DISCOVERIES.

Further, while it identifies familiar popular destinations that stood out for the whole list -- Mexico, Caribbean, Alaska, Orlando, Italy, Tahiti, Hawaii --it once again recognized CTD for going off the beaten path to unusual destinations. The sidebar quotes CTD president Steve Uelner observing that "Our top leisure destination in 2014 was the state of Iowa. There are a plethora of hidden gems throughout the state once you get on back roads. We ran 10 weeklong departures to Iowa last year."

This year's listing of top area travel companies can be found in the Milwaukee Business Journal March 27 print edition.

Edition Features Several Added Departures, New Destinations, "Last Chance" Tours

Country Travel DISCOVERIES is pleased to announce that the Spring Edition of our 2015 Travel Discoveries Catalog -- now including 6 classic tours introduced for 2015. The catalog also features movey-saving promotions including Travel More, Save More escalating discounts on multiple tours for 2015, which is combineable with our Refer-a-Friend Bonus, offering a $100.00 discount when you refer a new customer.

Using our Travel More, Save More escalating discount program, travelers can save $200.00 to $400.00 per couple, and can even combine these with our Refer-a-Friend bonus on new customer referrals to save even more.

As our long-time customers know, Country Travel DISCOVERIES has always emphasized off-the-beaten-path routes and harder-to-find attractions on our tours. Our tour coordinators generally try to avoid common tourist attractions, monuments and museums that travelers could easily visit on their own. That said, we have also enjoyed investigating and introducing our guests to a number of distinctive museums in smaller, out of the way towns across America. So, we were pleased to see some of our favorite stops from past and current tours on Fodor's list of "15 Best Small-Town Museums in the U.S.", released this week.